jamesclay, Author at Tech Stuff

October 27, 2008

Ooops I missed Spooks

I knew Spooks was coming back this autumn, however not watching much on the television recently meant I didn’t see any trailers. Nor did I get a newspaper either, so didn’t know that it was on tonight at 9pm.

Years ago it would have been a problem as I would have to wait until repeats.

Now we have a few technologies which make it much easier.

I could wait until it appears on DVD, though generally with BBC programmes it takes a long time to get onto DVD.

With Freeview I can watch repeats on BBC Three later this week…

And of course BBC iPlayer means I can watch it now, less than 30 minutes after it finished on BBC One.

Cool.

October 27, 2008

No joy with Nokia N810 and JoikuSpot

I have been using JoikuSpot for a few weeks now, with great success with an iPod touch, works a treat.

Decided today to see if I could use it with a Nokia N810.

Nokia N810

Hmmm.

Well, no I couldn’t. For some reason though it could connect to the JoikuSpot wireless network, it would not get to the JoikuSpot launch page and as a result no other internet access was possible.

The Pro version may work, but if it uses a launch page then I am guessing it still won’t work.

October 25, 2008

Levelator

If you are combining recordings or have multiple inputs into a recording it can be a real nightmare to get the levels right. Now you could spend a lot of time and money mixing in the different recordings, however a quick and easy method is to use Levelator.

Levelator

It’s software that runs on Windows, OS X (universal binary), or Linux (Ubuntu) that adjusts the audio levels within your podcast or other audio file for variations from one speaker to the next, for example. It’s not a compressor, normalizer or limiter although it contains all three. It’s much more than those tools, and it’s much simpler to use. The UI is dirt-simple: Drag-and-drop any WAV or AIFF file onto The Leveler’s application window, and a few moments later you’ll find a new version which just sounds better.

Find out more about Levelator.

October 24, 2008

Why your boss should never be your Facebook friend?

Amusing article on why you should be careful on what you post to social networking sites such as Facebook.

There are many good reasons for not having your boss as a Facebook friend, and Sydney call centre worker Kyle Doyle has just discovered the most convincing of them all.

What this does show more than anything is the need for our learners to be given advice and guidance on how to conduct themselves online, a digital literacy.

Josie Fraser has written an excellent article on her work on digital literacy and it is well worth reading.

October 24, 2008

Why your boss should never be your Facebook friend

Amusing article on why you should be careful on what you post to social networking sites such as Facebook.

There are many good reasons for not having your boss as a Facebook friend, and Sydney call centre worker Kyle Doyle has just discovered the most convincing of them all.

October 21, 2008

The new MacBooks

Popped into the Apple Store today to check out the new MacBooks and boy are they nice. Though I had seen them online, there is something about seeing them in the flesh.

They are constructed well and I like the way they are made from a brick of aluminum.

I might have to get one.

October 19, 2008

Are you on Twitter?

From the Handheld Learning 2008 Conference.

October 19, 2008

Bubbles…

Nice and amusing article on Mashable about how the speech bubble is found everywhere on the web.

How much value do you place in Web design? More specifically, how important is the construction of a company or website logo to you? Do you pay a good amount of attention to such things, or is it all really non-critical and ancillary?

Most of us judge books by their covers. It’s really just a matter of degree than anything else. You can be all cover, some cover, a little cover, and so on and so forth. Yet, with the rise of a full-on economy of online services that require some visual uniqueness to distinguish one from the other, there inevitably surface many similarities. Almost too many. One commonality is the speech bubble.

Read the article.

October 18, 2008